That’s where IperiaVX’s rapid application development comes into play, as well as its standards-based, “plays well with others” nature. In this podcast, Iperia Sales Engineer Scott Chong (I’ll let him explain the term “Sales Engineer”) talks about the benefits of application development for departmental solutions, and how IT doesn’t have to get hung out to dry in the process.

Listen to this inaugural Iperia podcast, with Southeastern US Sales Director Jim Bronson, for an example developed and deployed within 30 days using IperiaVX. (That’s Jim in action at 2007 Fall VON.)

By the way, at the time of this recording, we could only refer to Iperia’s client for this project as “a major MSO.” I’m pleased to reveal that the MSO is Cox Communications. A more formal announcement (read: press release) will be forthcoming.

It’s darned impressive, and they’re touting it like it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. I guess it takes someone big like the Redmond folks to bring this to the masses, but it creates a bit of mixed emotions, knowing that Iperia’s been this space for quite a while now.

This isn’t a sour grapes thing for me - Iperia’s not the only company on the block with UC software in its product mix, and it’s not like UC was invented at Iperia’s Billerica headquarters.

In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It’s a pat on the back for a ten-year-old industry in general, and for the companies in particular that broke new technological ground.

And there’s still more to be done. As Gartner notes:

The UC market and its technologies are maturing, but, overall, the market remains at an early stage of maturity, and the adoption of converged solutions remains slow.

After ten years, and with Redmond in the arena, however, something’s gotta give. I, for one, am glad Iperia’s moved beyond just UC applications to full-blown service creation. Sure, applications that tie into the communications infrastructure will always be necessary. But being able to customize solutions on the fly will make it that much easier to stay ahead of Microsoft on the development curve.

According to Jim Simon, Chariton Valley’s General Manager:

“We needed our service creation platform to have the ability to interoperate with multiple switch vendors, and to work in both a wireless and wireline messaging environment. IperiaVX delivered on those requirements, with quick and easy installation as well as great customer support.”

They’ve been in business for more than 56 years, and you don’t stay in business that long - especially as a local  exchange carrier - without innovating. They’re leading their state (and are pretty far ahead nationally, as well) by offering the benefits of a fiber optic network to their businesses and residential customers.

Now, they’re innovating their service offerings with IperiaVX, much to the delight of Iperia’s Chris Poer:

“It’s a pleasure to work with forward-thinking companies like Chariton Valley. They understand that in today’s service provider industry, you need to offer features and services tailored for specific niches within your market.

“That way, you stand apart from your competition, creating added value for which you can charge a premium price, and reduce customer churn at the same time. Otherwise, your service becomes commoditized, and your margins drop as you spend more and more to acquire and retain your customers.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

• One package.
• One simple bill.
• One low price.

This is exactly the same value proposition being offered by MetroCast, the small regional MSO serving more than 100 communities in New Hampshire (my home state), Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Connecticut and Maine. Here’s the benefit statement for MetroCast’s “VIP Package” (for Video, Internet, and Phone):

Video, Internet and Phone—all under one roof: Yours. Enjoy the convenience of three great services on one bill, from one company.

That nationwide phenomenon I mentioned in the headline of this post? It’s commoditization. At the B2C level, both companies are saying the exact same thing, and if they were competing in the same market, the only differentiating factor would be the brand reputation of TWC parent Time Warner.

The ever-helpful Wikipedia adds another wrinkle to the issue:

Today, triple play services are offered by cable television operators as well as by telecommunication operators. It paves the way for these service providers to compete with one another. It relies on the assumption that an integrated solution will increase opportunity costs for customers who may want to choose between service providers. Interoperability is not a design target.

That’s a pretty dangerous assumption. It reminds me of wireless carriers in the pre-number-portability days. Look at Verizon Wireless now. They unapologetically refuse to compete on price, because “It’s the Network.” They’re succeeding because they’ve positioned themselves based on one of the biggest pain points for cell phone users - network coverage. (Once AT&T catches up reputation-wise in that area, though, all bets are off.)

When you commoditize your service and compete only on price, you start from a place of zero loyalty with your customers. It doesn’t take much to create a stagnant customer base willing to jump if you annoy them enough. And the annoyance threshold is a lot lower without that whole loyalty thing, regardless of the alleged “opportunity cost.”

VoIP Logic’s Knowledge Base will serve as an invaluable, self-service resource for the company’s customers and partners by providing full transparency to the latest solutions and scripts, addressing more than 500 hundred (and growing) engineering issues on all VoIP Logic-supported systems…

Chris Poer, Iperia’s VP of Sales, notes that one of the hallmarks of VoIP Logic’s business and reputation is their “good customer support,” so we’re confident their new Knowledge Base will be welcomed by their competitive carrier customer base.

(Iperia was mentioned in their news release because VoIP Logic delivers unified messaging features within its integrated solutions using Iperia’s ActivEdge, precursor to the IperiaVX service creation platform.)

Congrats to the VoIP Logic team! Iperia looks forward to helping you create new revenue-generating opportunities for your customers, for many years to come.

Why “Smart SOA™” you ask? Because this is the approach IBM takes to ensuring the productive implementation of a service-oriented architecture. They call it “The experienced approach to acceleration, innovation and differentiation.” Here’s a little more detail from IBM for you:

The Smart SOA approach is a set of guiding principles developed by IBM, based on our unique experience working with more than 5700 customers using our SOA offerings.

The Smart SOA approach benefits both business and IT by extending the business value of deployment, from basic to advanced projects. The Smart SOA approach demands simplicity and robustness in every project, eliminating unnecessary complexity while building a strong foundation for future growth.

This is great stuff, as far as Iperia is concerned. Our service creation platform, IperiaVX, allows its users to rapidly deploy new and differentiated service offerings, while significantly decreasing the development cycle time. So IperiaVX and IBM’s Smart SOA are a perfect fit.

Iperia is one of eight select Business Partners joining IBM in their booth, represented by Sales VP Chris Poer and Solutions Engineer Scott Chong. Chris will also be giving a Birds of a Feather presentation there, entitled Service Creation: Creating Customer Value Through Rapid Service Deployment. (See a theme emerging?)

If you’ll be investing in this highly-regarded educational, technical, and networking event at the MGM Convention Center, please take a few minutes to drop by the Iperia pedestal, and tell us about your business.

The award goes to Iperia for its IperiaVX service creation platform in general, and its Mobile Visual Voicemail application in specific, as representative of the best and brightest companies creating “the future of Internet Communications.”

In a nifty little twist, there’s an additional achievement yet to be announced - the Judges’ Top 10, which will be revealed at the awards ceremony, taking place on Tuesday, March 18th, at Spring 2008 VON.x in San Jose.

Speaking of the judges, they were drawn from VON Magazine’s “editorial community” (I love that term), including:

Carl Ford, VP of Content and Community Developer for the VON.x Conference and Expo; Bob Emmerson, European Editor, VON Magazine and Euro Innovations e-newsletter; Ross O’Brien, Asia/Pacific Editor, VON Magazine; Bob Frankston, Frankston Innovating and Joel Maloff, founder of The Maloff Company and a contributing columnist for VON Magazine; and Doug Mohney, Editor-in-Chief, VON Magazine and the von:focus e-newsletter.

To win an Innovator Award based on the opinions of this group of industry watchers, thought leaders, and communicators is a honor, and we thank all of them for their consideration.

For us, this is a pretty big deal, because as Iperia Enterprise VP Josh Veshia notes:

“Many of the largest enterprises and service providers in North America rely on Siemens and the strength of their IP solutions … IperiaVX is the first Service Creation platform to successfully complete HiPath 8000 certification. This certification enables Siemens and Iperia to offer a unique value proposition to their customers: The ability to deliver high-margin, high-value communications services for their employees, partners, and clients.

These services, whose time to market used to take a year or more, can now be designed, created, tested, and deployed in just a few months with the IperiaVX Service Creation Platform.”

Though getting a certification like this one is a team effort, I’d like to flag three folks who really brought it all together: Bernd Weimar and Chuck Brooks at Siemens, and Gary Raches at Iperia. These three joined together in the Siemens lab and played a vital role in Iperia’s HiPath 8000 certification.

We’re grateful to these three guys, their teams, and to Siemens Communications in general. Now that it’s all said and done, it looks like the certification process could be the beginning of a great working relationship together.

Further, VoIP Logic’s APIs enable a variety of ways to access and make use of information from third-party vendor subsystems from companies like Sylantro, High Deal and Iperia.

Exposing APIs as Web Services is also key to the success of IperiaVX - that’s what makes it easy for web developers to tightly couple voice with internal and third-party applications, without having to dig around in the telecom infrastructure.

(Thanks, Mae, for dropping us a nod.)